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Tuesday, March 2, 2010

March / Rant

I admit it - March totally snuck up on me.
I have not updated mattbeaty.net. I do not have a background image for you, though I can point you over to David duChemin's site where he has a lovely image up for March.

In the first two months of 2010, I shot 21 gigabytes of decent personal photos. That does not include all the junk that gets deleted, nor does it include the 15gb I shot for work. In all of 2009, I shot 24gb.
This tells me a few things. It shows I have gotten good at taking a whole bunch of photos and then going through them; my selection process for 300 photos is about 10 minutes. It also shows that I've turned into one of those photographers.

<rant>

What do I mean when I say one of those photographers?
Well, when I first started shooting I told myself "get it right in camera or don't bother." I would spend time on each photo before I hit the shutter. Then I'd look at the image on the back of my camera and delete it if it wasn't good enough. These days, however, I check my LCD only for my histogram. If I think I screwed the composition or the focus, I'll just shoot a few more frames where I know I'm getting it right. I admit to myself "This doesn't look great now, but with a little contrast, sharpening and maybe vignette, it will."

I now liberally use photoshop, whereas a mere four years ago I despised photographers who retouched their photos in any way. Looking through my archives I can watch myself get more and more comfortable with the digital workflow and the digital darkroom (Photoshop). I understand now that now matter how perfect an image seems, it can always use a little something in post production.

The one exception to this is photojournalism. No retouching. Minimal exposure/contrast adjustments. You gotta get that stuff right in camera because photoshop isn't allowed to do any heavy lifting. Oddly enough, with the PJ work that I do, instead of motor driving everything like I used to, I actually sit and wait for the photo to come to me. It is a very refreshing way to shoot.